Mau Mau demand £60bn

VETERANS of the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule in Kenya have demanded almost £60 billion from Britain in compensation for alleged atrocities committed in the country's pre-independence era.

A group of 150 so-called "freedom fighters" and their supporters marched to the British High Commission in Nairobi and handed over a memorandum to embassy officials demanding payment in full within 28 days. If the British Government fails to meet the deadline, the Mau Mau Original Trust will take its case to the International Court of Justice.

It said it would also mobilise Kenyans to boycott all British goods entering the Kenyan market. The demand came before commemorations today to mark the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Mau Mau movement, which waged a bloody decade-long rebellion against the British colonial administration in the Fifties.

Rufus Drabble, the high commission's press spokesman, who received the petition, said the demand had been passed on to the Government's legal experts in London. He said: "We were happy to take it and look at it. But until we have looked at it in depth we cannot give a detailed response."

Privately, British officials said the sum the veterans were demanding was ludicrous and had little chance of getting further than the waste-paper basket. Although there is no exact breakdown given for the £59.75 billion demanded, the weighty document catalogues a vast array of alleged crimes ranging from the murder of babies to the killing of goats during the rebellion and before it.

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"Thousands still carry the bullets of your government's agents lodged in their bodies," one section of the document reads. "Thousands of children died of malnutrition in the concentration camps. We are demanding that you make good every cent that your authorised agents stole from us in form of life, labour, cash, moveable property, land trauma and land which you have been occupying to date."

White-owned tea plantations still occupy large swathes of the Kikuyu heartland, from where the Mau Mau were mainly drawn. White Kenyan survivors of the rebellion reacted with outrage to the compensation claim, accusing the Mau Mau Original Trust of being little more than a forum for opportunistic thugs.

A former member of the colonial forces who put down the rebellion, said: "This is a very sick joke. The Mau Mau were little more than animals who delighted in committing the most barbaric acts, even against their own tribe. The hypocrisy of this is astounding." White Kenyans say the Mau Mau rebellion was as much a tribal power struggle as it was a war for independence.

Entire villages were sometimes destroyed as the Mau Mau massacred members of their own Kikuyu tribe who were loyal to the British authorities. Those they did not kill they forced to join the movement. New recruits had to undertake a barbaric oathing ceremony that sometimes involved killing one's own relatives.

But many Kenyans say Britain's handling of the rebellion was one of the most shameful periods in its history. There are bitter memories for the thousands of Kikuyu forcibly interned in appalling conditions during the "emergency" and there is still anger over the hanging of the dreadlocked Dedan Kimathi, who has virtually become deified for his role as the Mau Mau's most prominent military leader.

The Mau Mau were founded by the late Jomo Kenyatta after he trained in subversion in Moscow. A state of emergency existed in Kenya from October 1952 until January 1960, during which time more than 13,000 Africans and 100 Europeans were killed. Kenyatta, who was imprisoned during the emergency, subsequently took over the reins of his country.